Chapter Text
Sam had drawn the shades.
It was all Dean could think of as the cab rolled along, its iron-rimmed wheels producing a deafening racket against the stone cobbles of the road. The noise, at least, was comforting. Dean had grown up with noise. It was the quiet he couldn’t stand.
He closed his eyes against the small, dark interior of the cab, which was made to feel smaller and darker still by the drawn shades along the sides and the folding doors in the front. Sam preferred it this way, Dean told himself. He preferred not to be exposed to the soot and the dirt and the brown fog of the city that got into people’s throats and made even the wealthy and titled cough until their lace-trimmed handkerchiefs turned bloody.
He could not know that to Dean, the hansom’s cramped interior, whose darkness was barely penetrated by the lamps hung on the outside for the driver’s benefit, served as an unwelcome reminder. It made Dean feel quite as if he’d never left Millbank at all.
The cab took a turn around a corner, and the noise of the wheels abruptly lessened. Dean’s hands tightened into fists, clutching the brim of the felt derby in his lap.
Beside him, Sam sighed with relief. “We must be on the Marylebone Road,” he said. “I heard they’d paved it with wooden blocks, to reduce the noise of the carriage wheels. A great improvement, don’t you think?”
Dean thought that paving a road in wood was a fool’s idea that would no doubt result in rot and stench in very short order, but he did not say so. He merely made a noise of assent and gave a stiff jerk of his head.
“You’ve been very quiet,” Sam said. “Are you quite well?”
Dean swallowed and counted to three as he laid out the words in his mind before he spoke them. “Yes, I’m well.”
Such a simple phrase; not worth a moment’s thought to most. They wouldn’t have been to him either, before Millbank. He’d been known, once, for his ability to charm and draw smiles. Before.
Now, every word took effort.
“I do hope you’ll speak up more readily when your employer asks you a question.” Sam’s tone suggested he was none too impressed with Dean’s assurances, or with Dean himself. “James is a good and Christian man, but even his patience has its limits.”
Dean could have made a remark about how the past few days of lodging in Sam’s rooms with him had tested his own patience to its limits, but he refrained. He had a good deal of practice at keeping remarks to himself, and Sam had been kind to take him in. Even the cheapest lodging house was beyond Dean’s financial means, for the time being.
Sam had been kind, too, to recommend Dean for a position at his friend’s house, never mind the fact that Dean had never been in domestic service and would probably have done better working at the docks. Or perhaps he could have gone back to being a mudlark, making his living by picking coal from the riverbed when the tide was out and selling it for a ha’penny at the riverfront markets.
The river’s bounty had kept their family alive when they’d been children, at least for a little while. He could have made do.
Sam watched him, dissatisfied with his lack of response, but the carriage made another turn just then, back onto cobblestone, and conversation became impossible. Small mercies.
If Dean had his way, they would have walked from Sam’s rooms near the Inns of Court, never mind that it was a distance of more than three miles. He was used to making his way through the city on foot, learning the twist of each lane and the character of its residents as he went. Parts of London, particularly those near the river, were so familiar to him that he’d spent long, dreary hours in his cell at Millbank retracing them from memory in his mind.
At long last, the cab rattled to a stop. Sam pushed open the folding doors, and Dean took his first full breath in a small age as he leapt from the carriage and donned his hat. He left Sam to negotiate payment with the driver while he took in their surroundings.
They had alighted next to a row of terraced brick houses that stood at the edge of a small, tidy square. Kent Square, according to the sign at the corner. In a different, more outlying part of town, solid and respectable residences such as these might house rich merchants or minor nobles. Or, in the pages of the penny-bloods Dean loved, scheming dukes and dastardly foreign spies.
Marylebone’s respectability, however, was tenuous, given its proximity to the river and the stinking poverty that lived there. Dean suspected the residents of these houses counted themselves among the lower middle classes: shopkeepers, bookkeepers, and keepers in general of other people’s fortunes.
Sam appeared next to him, having concluded his business with the cab driver. A handkerchief was pressed to his face, to guard against the thick brown fog that choked the air and made the light as dim as dusk, though by the bells of St. Mary’s, it was no later than mid-afternoon.
“You left this,” Sam said, and passed Dean a small Gladstone bag that contained all of his worldly possessions. Mostly Sam’s to begin with, given to him as cast-offs. Dean had come out of Millbank with nought but the clothes on his back.
Dean nodded as he accepted the bag. It felt light, but then again, Dean’s life had never held much weight.
“It’s this way,” Sam said, and climbed a short set of steps up to the nearest of the identical terraced houses. He grasped the knocker and worked it hard enough that it must have been heard inside the house, even as the thick fog swallowed its echo out of doors.
Sam’s knock summoned a female servant in a plain linsey frock, her light hair tucked primly into a white cap. She studied them both with a pinched, expectant look. Dean grew abruptly conscious of how he must look in his felt derby and sack coat, next to Sam in his silk top hat: like the charity case he was.
“Sam Winchester and his brother, Dean,” Sam said. “Mr Novak is expecting us.”
“Very well,” the servant said, and opened the door wider to admit them.
Sam doffed his hat, and Dean followed his example, as they stepped into a narrow hall that fronted a carpeted staircase leading up to the second floor. A mirror hung upon the wall, and Dean carefully averted his eyes from it. He did not need further reminders that he looked out of place in a house such as this. Instead, he kept his eyes on the three doorways that opened off the hall.
It was into one of these that the servant briefly disappeared, returning a moment later with a nod and a curt, “The Novaks will see you in the parlour.”
She remained by the doorway and gestured for them to proceed. Dean’s hold on his hat tightened. When they had reached the threshold, the servant announced, “Misters Sam and Dean Winchester.”
“Thank you, Hester,” said a man’s voice. The servant, Hester, took Sam’s hat and coat, curtseyed and withdrew. Dean was left wondering if he should have handed her his hat and coat as well, or if that would have been giving himself airs above his station.
“James,” Sam said warmly. He strode into the parlor with no apparent misgivings, hand outstretched to greet his friend, who had risen from his chair. The woman in the other chair had remained seated, but Sam took her hand as well and bowed over it. “Amelia.”
Dean, unsure of his position in this conversation, remained by the door.
He had always pictured the parlours in fine houses to be fussy things, filled with lace and patterned wallpaper and figurines depicting exotic animals. Here, both the walls and carpet were of a plain, brownish color. A piano in the corner, a framed portrait of Queen Victoria upon the wall and a fireplace screen painted with flowers were the only items that could rightfully be called decorative. There was, too, a notable absence of fripperies on the mantel and sideboard: no vases or statuettes, not even a likeness of the house’s inhabitants, whether painted or in the new daguerreotype style that Sam had recently used to have his portrait taken. Something to do with light exposure, he’d explained, but Dean hadn’t exactly understood.
“Dean,” Sam said, in a tone that suggested it hadn’t been the first time.
Dean, realising he’d been slouching, assumed an upright, attentive posture.
“Meet your new employers, James and Amelia Novak,” Sam said, still with a note of impatience.
“Sir,” Dean said, dropping his head respectfully. “Ma’am.”
When he looked up again, he studied the Novaks properly for the first time. James Novak had taken his seat again, but even so, Dean could tell he was a tall man; not as tall as Dean and Sam perhaps, but they were unusual in that respect. He looked as sober as his surroundings, in drab brown trousers and a black coat and waistcoat. His hair was dark in colour and slicked neatly against his scalp. His jaw was sharply cut and his eyes were a clear blue that Dean would have called striking on a less ordinary man.
His wife wore a modest, high-necked black gown, her light hair pinned in a knot against the back of her head. The only concession to her elevated station in life was the gown’s fabric, which Dean thought to be satin or something like it. A dress of black satin, such as the one the murderess Maria Manning was said to have worn to the gallows. He likely wouldn’t be thanked for mentioning the connection.
“Well, Winchester. I hope you’ll find the situation here an agreeable one,” Mr Novak said warmly, though Dean couldn’t help but note the use of his last name. He was not here as a friend, the way Sam was. He was to be a servant.
“Yes, sir,” Dean said, sensing that an answer was expected of him. He was beginning to feel odd, standing by the door with his hat in his hands, when Sam had since taken a seat in a third chair by the table at the centre of the parlour.
“I’m sure Sam told you some of what the position entails, but let me put it plainly,” Mr Novak said. “I’m in need of a man who won’t be afraid to help Hester with all necessary work around the house. You will be asked to serve at table, perform a valet’s duties and assist with other domestic tasks. We keep our staff of servants small, so as to discourage idleness. You will receive half a day’s holiday on Sundays, to attend the service at St. Mary’s.”
Dean would rather have spent his holiday abed, but nodded in meek assent.
“Your most important duty, however,” Mr Novak went on, straightening in his chair and raising his chin, “will be to assist me in my laboratory. Do you know what a scientific chemist is, Winchester?”
Dean cleared his throat to gain time as he arranged the words in his mind. “A… a chemist sells… medicines, sir.”
Mr Novak exchanged a humoured look with Sam. Mrs Novak kept her eyes on the embroidery frame in her lap.
“Indeed, Winchester, but a scientific chemist is something altogether different. A scientific chemist, you see, studies the composition of matter and determines how it can be used to produce certain effects.”
This was unlike anything Dean had ever heard, and for the first time, he found himself curious about his new employer. “What manner of effects, sir?” he asked, only realising after the words had emerged that he hadn’t needed to arrange them first.
The look of humour on Mr Novak’s face faded slightly. “All manner,” he said vaguely. “It will not be necessary or even desirable for you to understand the purpose of the experiments that I conduct in my lab. I will tell you what I require from you in quite plain language, and that will be sufficient.”
“As… as you s-say, sir,” Dean said haltingly, taken aback by the dismissal.
“You did not tell us your brother stammered so, Mr Winchester,” said Mrs Novak, speaking up for the first time.
Dean’s cheeks heated with shame and mortification. The Novaks must think him dim-witted. His tongue had once been his best friend; it had gotten him out of many a narrow scrape. Now, it had become his enemy, tripping him up at the worst of times.
“He doesn’t, as a rule,” Sam said. “I think it must be his time at Millbank. It’s a silent prison, you see. The inmates are not permitted to speak except when they receive visitors, once every other month.”
Dean reflected bitterly that, before Millbank, he would have had some choice words for his brother, if he’d spoken of him as though he weren’t in the room.
Mrs Novak gasped. “How simply awful.”
“Penance for our sins is best accomplished in a state of deprivation, my dear,” Mr Novak said solemnly. “Silence encourages reflection. This is a good thing.”
“Of course, dear,” Mrs Novak said meekly. “You know best.”
“How are you provided for the basic necessities, Winchester?” Mr Novak asked. “We dress modestly in this house, as you can see, but if you’re to serve as valet and at table, I should like you to wear a frock coat and oil your hair.”
Dean cleared his throat again, thinking of the small Gladstone bag he’d carried in and left in the hall outside. Bringing its contents to mind. “I have some hair oil, sir.” He’d never been in the habit of using it, but Sam had pressed it into his hand alongside the bag, which was also Sam’s. “But no…”
He frowned, trying to find the other word Mr Novak had used. It wouldn’t come to him.
“... frock coat,” Sam supplied, with an air of weariness. “He has a second shirt, some hair oil, a comb, a shaving kit and a bit of soap, but no frock coat.”
“Well, no matter,” Mr Novak said. “I daresay I have a cast-off I can give you, Winchester.”
Dean swallowed; he pictured the obstruction in his throat moving out of the way. “Thank you, sir.”
Dressing in cast-offs was nothing new. His sack coat used to be his father’s; too durable and well-preserved to consider wasting it as burial clothes, it had spent years in his mother’s wooden chest. Even now that Dean was a grown man, it was too wide around the shoulders, but it kept him reasonably warm even after three years stored at Millbank with the rest of the clothes he’d been wearing when he was arrested.
No, he didn’t mind cast-offs as such. His only hope was that Mr Novak wouldn’t insist on passing on his long drawers. Dean had gotten by just fine all his life by tucking his shirttails around himself for comfort and modesty. Wearing another man’s smallclothes would be one indignity too many.
“That’s settled, then,” Mr Novak said. He rose from his chair, and Dean lowered his eyes to the scuffed tips of his shoes. Keeping his eyes averted from other men was another thing he was well practiced at. Even at Millbank, he’d kept his head down in that regard; hadn’t been one of the men who’d made special friends and found ways to pass notes to them. He’d smashed up his cell once in a fit of rage and been sent to the darks for two days. After that, he hadn’t been keen to step out of line.
The clear sound of a bell filled the room. Slanting his eyes sideways, Dean found Mr Novak by the sidetable, having picked up a small brass thing and rung it, likely to summon Hester.
She appeared a moment later, dropping into another curtsey.
“Hester, I’d like you to show Winchester to his room and familiarise him with his duties,” Mr Novak said.
“And what of Claire, Hester?” Mrs Novak asked, looking up from her embroidery. The rose upon the frame looked strange, half-finished as it was. As though some creature had clamped its jaws upon it and torn it clean in half. “Where is she?”
“Playing with her dolly in the day-room, madam.” Hester’s tone suggested disapproval, though Dean was beginning to suspect it was simply how she spoke.
“Have her fetch her Bible and come to me here,” Mrs Novak said. “We’ll work on her letters for some while.”
“Yes, madam.” Hester curtseyed again and left the room. Dean turned toward the door, unsure if he was meant to follow or wait for Hester to return from her errand to instruct what was presumably the Novaks’ daughter.
“Be well, Dean,” Sam said. “I hope you’ll find it comfortable here.”
Dean supposed that was his answer. He nodded at his brother and followed Hester out through the door.
He found her already halfway up the stairs and hurried to follow.
“It’s improper,” Hester muttered, “a woman of Mrs Novak’s quality and standing, teaching the child her letters. Claire ought to have a proper governess. Instead, I’m expected to make do, as well as cooking the meals and laying the fires and cleaning the house.”
“It sounds a hard lot,” Dean said. It was easier to speak without hesitation or stammer, away from the probing, assessing eyes of Sam and the Novaks.
He was glad of it, because though Hester didn’t appear to be the sort of person he would seek to make a friend of, it seemed to him they ought at least to be allies if they were to work together.
“It is, and that’s the truth of it,” Hester said as they arrived at the landing, which opened onto another narrow hall. The doors off it stood open — in an attempt, Dean supposed, to make do with what little daylight there was and keep from lighting the candles in their polished metal sconces until after dark. “I hope you won’t give yourself airs, because we have no scullery maids here, nor hall boys. You’ll have to sweep the fireplaces and empty the chamber pots, same as me.”
Dean grimaced. He was hardly in a position to have airs, but he’d thought he was being hired as an assistant for Mr Novak’s work, and as a valet. He had little idea of what a valet did all day, other than help his master dress and keep his clothes in good order, but he was reasonably sure it wasn’t a position that required the sweeping of fireplaces or emptying of chamberpots.
“Tightfisted, are they?” he asked.
He felt sure the Novaks must be able to afford a bigger staff than two, living in a fine house such as this.
“You’ve only just got here,” Hester said coolly. “I’ll thank you not to speak of our employers in such a manner.”
Dean took that remark for agreement. He could have said that Hester had spoken in a far less respectful manner moments ago, but he supposed it was a matter of tenure. He hadn’t yet earned the right.
They turned left into the second door off the hall; the only one that had been closed. When Hester opened it and stepped through, a small girl of perhaps seven or eight years was revealed. She sat on the floor, her blonde hair pinned to her head, wearing a black dress not unlike her mother’s, though with a shorter skirt.
Next to her sat a doll with a porcelain face that was strikingly like her. Dean glanced around the room to find a rocking horse, a small table with a miniature tea set upon it, and shelves of other assorted playthings.
“You must not slouch, Patience,” the girl told the doll firmly. “It’s not good manners.”
“Claire,” Hester said. “Your mother wants you in the parlour. You’re to fetch your Bible and go to her, to study your letters.”
Claire’s face, sweet a moment ago, assumed an expression of extreme displeasure. “I’m rather busy just now,” she said. Her eyes slid to Dean, who was surprised by the shrewdness in them. He’d known many children who’d had to become shrewd and hard before their time, but he hadn’t thought to find such a child in a house like this one. “Who are you?” Claire asked.
“Mind your manners, Claire,” Hester said. “This is Winchester. He’s to help me around the house and assist your father with his work.”
“Like Webb used to do?” Claire asked, inclining her head to the side in a questioning sort of manner.
“Yes, dear.”
Claire’s eyes found Dean again. “What do you think of Patience, Winchester? She’s my dolly.”
“She’s a very fine dolly, I think,” Dean said. Despite Claire’s shrewdness, he found her easy to speak to. He had always liked children.
“I agree,” Claire said solemnly. “Did you have a dolly when you were a boy?”
Hester clapped her hands together. “Pray, what nonsense, child. Boys do not play with such things.”
Forgetting for the moment that Hester was a better ally to have in this house than a child of seven or eight, Dean crouched down low to put himself at the same height as Claire’s face. “May I tell you a secret, Claire?” he asked, barely above a whisper.
For the first time, Claire looked positively delighted, a spark lighting in the blue eyes she’d inherited from her father. “Please do,” she said, in the same low tone.
“When I was a boy, my friend Joanna had a…” He was obliged to search for the word, but only for a moment. “A rag doll, but she would never let me play with it when I asked. To this day, I haven’t forgiven her, though her doll wasn’t near as fine as yours.”
Claire gave him a haughty look. “That wasn’t charitable of her. You may play with my dolly whenever you like, Winchester, provided I’m not playing with her myself at the time.”
Dean bit his lip against a smile. “Thank you kindly, Miss Claire,” he said.
“Go to your mother now, Claire,” Hester said, her voice a little peevish. Dean wondered if he’d offended her by speaking to the child. Hester seemed to have very definite ideas of what was and wasn’t proper to do.
Still, as Hester could not see his face, Dean twitched a small smile at the girl, which she returned as she scrambled to her feet and darted out of the room, followed by a snappish reminder from Hester not to run in the house.
Dean wondered what it must be like to grow up in a place where the indoors had sufficient space to run. With his mother, Sam, himself and the Harvelles crammed into a single room at the boarding house, there had barely been room to walk at times.
“Follow me, Winchester,” Hester said, and Dean thought it best to obey quickly.
Hester led him down the other end of the corridor and to the back stairs, which brought them down to a hall even dimmer than the one where they’d found Claire. There were fewer windows here to admit the sickly, foggish daylight, and what windows Dean could see were narrow and close to the ground. He half expected to see people’s shoes walking to and fro outside each one, like skittish creatures with minds of their own.
“This is your room,” Hester said, leading Dean through the second door in the hallway. “It isn’t much, but it’ll have to do.”
Dean looked around. In truth, it probably was a rather modest accommodation, with nothing but a simple wooden bedframe, a small table with a candle upon it, a jug and bowl for washing, and a plain box to store his things in. A hook on the wall provided a place to hang his coat.
He did not know how to say that he’d been accustomed to walls streaked white with lime mortar made runny by the moisture that seemed to seep into every nook of Millbank. He did not know how to say that he had had nothing but his tin mug and trencher and a copy of The Prisoner’s Companion, or that the corners of his cell had in certain seasons swarmed with black beetles that had seemed to appear more quickly than he’d been able to stomp them underfoot.
“It will…” He breathed in and out. “Suit me nicely. Thank you.”
“Well, I should think so," Hester said, then studied him with raised eyebrows. “You’re not fit to serve at table as you are. Have you no other clothes?”
Dean explained, in more halting tones than he would have liked, about his bag upstairs, and what little it contained, as well as the castoffs Mr Novak had said he would provide.
“I suppose I’ll see about getting some things of Mr Novak’s for you then. Another duty that ought more properly to be done by a valet or footman.” Hester sighed. “Go fetch your bag in the meantime, but come back here after. I’ll not have you skulking about the house. The Novaks may see no harm in bringing a prisoner into their home, but I have my qualms.”
Dean bit his lip to keep from snapping at Hester until she had left the room. It wouldn’t have served him well to talk back.
Moreover, given what he had gone to prison for, he could hardly dismiss Hester’s suspicion against him as groundless.
***
Despite Hester’s complaints, she was quick to return with a frock coat for Dean. It was plain black, like so much of Mr Novak’s clothing appeared to be, and it was a little too narrow around Dean’s arms and shoulders, restricting his movement. Millbank, with its poor food and hard labour, had left him thin but strong. Mr Novak, it was clear, had the build of one who’d been accustomed to soft living and the sort of work that could be done at desks.
Dean used the small mirror in his room to oil and comb his hair as best he could before going in search of the kitchen to see if he could make himself useful. Hester put him to work peeling potatoes and fetching things from the larder and scullery. She did not complain about his work, so Dean assumed she couldn’t find fault with it. Near the end of his term at Millbank, he’d been assigned to the kitchens; a coveted placement because the kitchens were warm and extra scraps could sometimes be secreted in one’s pockets. That experience served him well now.
More difficult was the task of laying the table. The drawers Hester showed him contained a bewildering array of cutlery in so many distinct shapes and sizes that Dean could not begin to guess what they might all be for. Hester demonstrated the correct placement for him, but Dean felt not at all confident that he would be able to replicate it if left to his own devices.
During the meal, Hester instructed him to stand in the corner of the dining room, keeping watch in case the Novaks required anything. The dishes had all been set out at the centre of the table, and the Novaks did not seem to take wine with their supper, so there was precious little for Dean to do except stand there and remember that he hadn’t had any food himself in some hours. Still, hunger was a feeling he was accustomed to; there was almost comfort in its familiarity.
After the family had eaten their meal, Dean and Hester dined on the remainders in the kitchen. Hester had made some fried whiting for the family, but that was mostly gone, leaving them with potatoes and a hunk of stale bread.
Mid-meal, they were interrupted by the appearance of Mr Novak in the kitchen doorway.
“Pray do not let me disturb your supper,” he said, though the deed was already done, both Hester and Dean having risen to their feet. “Winchester, when you have finished, I should like to see you in the laboratory.”
Dean hastily swallowed the bite of bread he’d just taken. “Y-yes, sir.”
He hurried through the rest of his meal, unsure of how long he was permitted to dawdle when his employer had asked for his presence. The warders at Millbank had been none too patient on that score.
When he’d finished, he eyed the frock coat he’d taken off to eat his supper. “I suppose I’ll be… expected to wear this even when I’m not... serving at table?” he asked Hester.
Hester gave him a look that suggested she had a poor opinion of his intelligence. “This may be an unconventional household, but we don’t yet allow servants to go about in their shirtsleeves,” she said crisply.
She rose from the table, gathering Dean’s trencher and hers with ill grace. Dean supposed she’d hoped for his help in cleaning the kitchen. “Later, perhaps I could—” he began, but she silenced him with a look.
“Go do as you’re told,” she said.
Dean did, shrugging into the tight, confining coat as he went.
According to Hester’s instructions, the laboratory was at the back of the house, down the left-hand corridor from the front hall. As he passed through the hall, he caught a glimpse of Mrs Novak, back in the parlour, working on her embroidery and generally looking decorative. There was nothing to be seen of Claire, who had sat unnaturally still all through supper, as though she were used to being scolded for speaking up. It left Dean wondering how much time the child spent alone and in silence, with nothing but her doll and her thoughts for company. Not the same as his sojourn at Millbank, by any means, but too much like it for a child her age.
The laboratory door sat at the far end of the left-hand hall. As Dean approached it, he had the strangest fancy that it crouched there like an animal lying in wait to attack the unwary. It was with a sense of apprehension that he knocked on the door and waited for permission to enter.
When he received it, he was struck at once by how different the room appeared from the rest of the house. Whereas all he had seen so far spoke of comfortable, if dull, respectability, this new room felt like a glimpse into the pages of a penny-blood. There, a villain’s dastardly deeds always seemed to be committed in hidden dungeons and catacombs that went on for miles beneath the streets, unbeknownst to the people above.
Like these, Mr Novak’s laboratory was below the ground, accessed through a narrow staircase that led into a room of generous proportions. Dean wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that it ran below much of the house.
At the top of the steps, he hesitated. There were no windows in this room. The only egress was the door he’d just come through and another at the far end of the room, which was accessed by another set of stairs and ought, by Dean’s reckoning, to lead out onto a street or alley at the back of the house.
Dean didn’t care for rooms without windows.
“Come, come, Winchester,” Mr Novak said, waving at Dean from a place near the bottom of the staircase. He stood beside a table that held all manner of instruments Dean had never seen before: large, bulbous glass things with long necks, containing liquids that bubbled with heat or glowed in colours more vivid than any Dean had ever seen. A notebook lay open on the table before Mr Novak, and it was this he was absorbed in studying, scribbling more words onto the page, crossing out others.
Slowly, Dean descended the steps. He kept his eyes fixed on the fireplace in the corner, where flames crackled and popped, lighting the room and rendering it almost unbearably hot and dry. Dean welcomed the heat, and the light. Anything to remind himself that he hadn’t been sent to the darks below Millbank in a straitjacket, to sit alone and silent in shadows almost thick enough to grasp.
Mr Novak turned to Dean the moment he’d reached the bottom of the staircase. Sweat pearled along his forehead. His eyes had the abstracted look of someone who had been torn from a task.
Still, he smiled as he said, “Well? How do you like my domain?”
Dean cleared his throat. “I… I like it well enough, sir.” In speaking to Mr Novak, he’d been obliged to turn away from the fire, and he didn’t care for the way darkness seemed to gather in every distant corner of the room.
Mr Novak’s smile faltered ever so slightly, as though he had expected greater appreciation than he’d received. Dean couldn’t fathom why a man like Mr Novak would care one way or the other what his opinion might be.
“Well,” Mr Novak said, recovering his smile a little, “it used to be a surgeon’s operating theatre. I purchased this house expressly because this room suited my purposes so well.”
Dean nodded and stood in an attitude of expectant meekness, unsure of what other reaction was expected of him. Surgeons, as far as he could tell, were little better than butchers, extracting teeth and hacking off limbs, and killing the people they’d operated upon half the time. It didn’t seem a point of pride to stand in a place where one had worked. He half thought he could hear the screams of the suffering still echo off the walls and see their blood still pooling upon the floor.
His father, when he’d been alive, had always thought Dean far too fanciful for his own good. He’d likely had the right of it.
“Now,” Mr Novak said, reaching up one hand as though to clap Dean’s arm, then appearing to think better of the gesture. “Can you read, Winchester?”
“Y-yes, sir.”
Mr Novak nodded approvingly. “I suppose they taught you at Millbank.”
“No, begging your… pardon, sir. I was taught my letters as a child.”
It was one of the things he remained grateful to Alastair for. He’d been taught many things under Alastair’s tutelage, including those that had led him to Millbank, but they had also been things that had helped him survive for years. He counted learning to read among them. When his life had seemed like no sort of life at all, he’d had the highwayman Dick Turpin and the privateer Paul Jones to keep him company, the latest installments of their adventures purchased for no more than a penny. For a ha’penny, he’d fetch the latest broadsides with details on real murders that sent pleasant shivers down his spine.
After he’d been taken, there had been nothing like it to distract or entertain him.
Mr Novak looked surprised, but not displeased. “I’m glad to hear it. You’ll be quicker than Webb was, by far, in fetching things. Though I feel that I had better caution you.” Here, Mr Novak’s expression grew grave. “I won’t take kindly to any attempts to read the notes I’ve taken on my research.”
He tapped the notebook he’d bent over a moment ago, but did not avert his eyes from Dean’s face. Dean fought not to squirm away from such scrutiny. To be seen and noticed was not always a good thing; life had taught him that lesson early.
“I wouldn’t, sir,” he said, though the very fact of being forbidden to look had made him morbidly curious. The things people guarded most closely were those most worth stealing.
“Good.” Mr Novak nodded, though he closed his notebook, removing the lines upon lines of writing from Dean’s view. The only impression he’d had was of letters dashed across the page in a hurry; as though Mr Novak had received revelation and sought to capture it before it fled. “Now, step over here with me for a moment.”
Once more, Mr Novak made a curious motion toward Dean, as though to grasp his arm, but then thought better of it. Dean was beginning to form some opinions on the subject. Certainly, there were men who merely feared the way an innocent touch of another man’s arm would make them appear in the eyes of others. But there were other men too, who wished to seek out such touches, but would not allow themselves. Experience, sometimes painful, had taught Dean to tell one from the other, and here, he thought, was a man of the second kind.
Mr Novak was handsome enough, with his sharp jaw, dark hair and blue eyes, Dean considered as he followed his employer to a cabinet filled with glass bottles containing various liquids. Better-looking by far than most of the men who’d paid for Dean’s touch.
“These are the chemicals I use in my experiments,” Mr Novak explained, none the wiser about the turn Dean’s thoughts had taken. “Those marked ‘acid’ are noxious and will cause burns if they touch your skin, so handle them with care. Webb failed to learn this lesson, I’m afraid.”
Dean bit his tongue against the remarks he could have made. He’d seen more than his fair share of people with vitriolic burns, their skin discolored and their features distorted. At times, the burns had been the result of accidents or disputes at work. Other times, they had been caused by spite and jealousy. Mrs Barnes, a woman in their lodging house, had fallen afoul of her husband by looking too much at the costermonger down the street and lost her eyes for it.
“I won’t make such mistakes, sir,” he said.
Mr Novak nodded his satisfaction. “In any case, I won’t ask you to handle much acid. The formula I’m presently developing is meant to be safely ingested.”
As when he’d first heard of Mr Novak’s profession, Dean found himself intrigued. He took a risk. “Will you tell me anything of its… its purpose, sir?”
Mr Novak’s eyes darted to Dean’s face, then to his notebook, as if in conflict concerning the way forward. Dean felt a moment’s temptation to mention that, as he was not to leave the house except on Sunday mornings, there would be precious few opportunities to gossip with anyone about his employer’s experiments. But he held his tongue, and he waited.
At long last, Mr Novak leaned in closer, his voice lowered to a whisper. “It is my belief, Winchester, that human nature is composed of two distinct parts.”
Dean did not lean closer in turn, but also did not move away, lest his employer take offense at the action. “Two parts, sir?”
Mr Novak nodded. “Indeed. One part strives always to be better, more Christian, nearer to God.”
“And the other?” Dean asked, growing more interested all the time.
“The other…” Mr Novak’s gaze grew distant. A shiver ran through him. He seemed to firm himself against it, clenching his hands into fists until their knuckles stood out white. “The other is sinful, striving always to give in to… dark urges.”
Dean made no response. He stood very, very still, afraid that any reminder of his presence would cause Mr Novak to regret having spoken. Such regret could be dangerous to the unwary, Dean had found.
“The church teaches us to fight against such urges through prayer, but prayer does not always prove efficacious.”
Mr Novak’s face took on a darker cast. He would not have looked amiss as the subject of a woodcut entitled The Murderer’s Conniving Countenance.
“And so, I’ve set myself the task of a scientific solution,” he continued. “If a chemical tincture can be made to suppress that dark side of human nature that urges a man to sin, why, that man would be closer to God than any still living.” A strange light had entered Mr Novak’s eyes. Dean recognised it well: the light of desperation. “That man would be the perfect specimen of humanity. A perfect husband and father. An inspiration to his fellows in every way.”
“Indeed, sir,” Dean agreed, though he thought it sounded a dull way to live. For all that he’d been set to memorising Bible verses by charitable prison visitors and urged to read The Prisoner’s Companion for its moral instruction, all that his time at Millbank had really taught him was a greater, more profound anger at his own circumstances. Those circumstances had forced him to do a great number of things that would, as he understood it, keep him from his Heavenly reward. God did not love thieves and molly boys.
That being the case, he thought he might as well enjoy the time he had left on the earthly plane.
“I suppose you ought to know,” Mr Novak said, “that I propose to make myself the first subject of this great moral and scientific experiment.”
Dean knew little of the pursuits of scholarly men, and he would have been the first to admit it. Nonetheless, administering to oneself an untested substance on the basis of a scientific belief seemed the height of folly.
Naturally, it wouldn’t do to say so.
“Are you… certain it’ll be safe?” he asked instead. “Sir?”
Mr Novak smiled at him with all the indulgence of one watching a favourite pet perform tricks. “Certain? No. But nothing ventured, nothing gained, I suppose. And the state for which I’m striving is a noble goal to aspire to. Grave risks are of little consequence when the fate of an immortal soul hangs in the balance.”
Accepting that Mr Novak wouldn’t be persuaded to Dean’s view of the matter, he returned his attention to the cabinet, studying the various sizes of glass phials and stoppered bottles.
“Is there anything here you recognise, Winchester?” Mr Novak asked. He seemed genuinely curious, as though he was attempting to gain the measure of Dean’s intellect.
Out of some obscure instinct to please (or perhaps not so obscure; Alastair, too, had often asked him leading questions and encouraged him to work his way around to the answer), Dean bent closer to study the labels. They might as well have been written in a foreign language for all he could recognise the words.
The first shelf yielded nothing at all, except the discomfort of Dean’s too-tight frock coat straining against his arms and shoulders with every small movement. But at last, on the second shelf, he stopped.
“This,” he said, pointing at a brown bottle containing white grains. “Arsenic.”
“Indeed,” Mr Novak said, with a note of disappointment. “A common enough thing kept around the home.”
In truth, though arsenic was a common household remedy for vermin, Dean knew of it mainly as an ingredient in creams used to enhance fine ladies’ complexions, and coveted passionately by the women who had worked with him under Alastair’s tutelage.
Then there was arsenic’s reputation as a poison. In the few days since he’d been released from Millbank, the streets had seemed abuzz with talk of Marie Lafarge, the French poisoner, who’d used arsenic to do away with her husband. Dean’s sole personal expense, using a ha’penny of the pocket money Sam had given him, had been the purchase of a broadside that showed the stern-faced Madame Lafarge and offered eight pages of verse about the case. Two of those pages cast aspersions on the nature of her relationship with her servant Charles.
“Well, as you know your letters, I suppose your familiarity with the substances in question matters little,” Mr Novak said as he returned to the table where his notebook still lay, awaiting further instruction. “You’ll simply have to listen well and find the appropriate items when I require them.”
And so it went for the next two hours: Mr Novak asking for one item after another, Dean searching for it in the cabinet while Mr Novak’s tongue clacked with impatience in the background. All the while, the frock coat strained uncomfortably against Dean’s shoulders, its heavy woolen fabric stifling him in the close air of the laboratory.
Once or twice, he attempted to watch as Mr Novak added new ingredients to the glass vessels on his table, turning the tinctures inside them new and interesting colors. But each time, Mr Novak seemed to resent the scrutiny, turning so as to conceal his actions from Dean’s view by means of his shoulder or back. Though Dean’s new master evidently thought little of his intellect, he also seemed suspicious that Dean might be shamming stupidity, perhaps in order to ferret out the secrets of Mr Novak’s science.
It was a relief, then, when Mr Novak at last dismissed him to his bed.
The house lay quiet around Dean when he emerged from the laboratory door. Only a single lamp in the hall lit his way through spaces he had yet to become accustomed to. The kitchen lay dark, the dishes long since washed and put away. No doubt, Hester would resent Dean all the more in the morning for his failure to return and help her manage the task.
On the staircase leading to the servants’ quarters, Dean almost stumbled, misjudging the height of the crooked steps in the dark. He hadn’t dared to take the lamp with him, supposing it had been left out for Mr Novak to find his way to his own bed (or Mrs Novak’s) at whatever hour suited him best.
At last, Dean found his way to his own room down the narrow, dim corridor. Though it seemed a waste of a match, he lit the candle beside his bed before using the tepid water in the basin to wash his face and neck. All alone in a quiet house, the darkness felt far too much like the more sinister darkness of Millbank punishment. If Dean allowed his thoughts to dwell along those lines too long, he might feel again the bite of the hobble that had kept him kneeling and unable to move for hours, or the tight clench of the straitjacket around his chest.
Breath coming too fast and his heart beating a wild rhythm in his chest, he pulled off the frock coat. His first instinct was to throw it into the furthest corner, but thinking better of it, he hung it upon the hook by the door. He would be expected to wear it again tomorrow.
Gathering his courage, Dean blew out the candle and climbed into his bed. It was softer than the cot he’d been accustomed to at Millbank, though not by much.
In the absence of light, the darkness of his room seemed to grow eyes and claws, malicious intent reaching for him beneath his thin blanket. Dean closed his eyes tight against it all. There was nothing to fear from the darkness, he told himself. Not in a house such as this, with its bedrooms and parlors and pictures of Queen Victoria upon the wall.